Consolation

  ‘When René’s parents were alive, this is where they housed the farm workers.’

  ‘And is this where your children sleep?’

  ‘No,’ she said reassuringly, ‘I forgot to show you the last room below the stairs . . . But wait, you like seeing how things are built – come and see the attic, watch your he—’

  ‘Too late,’ moaned Charles, who had stopped counting his bruises.

  But he soon removed his palm from his forehead, ‘Can you imagine, Kate? All the work, the intelligence those men must have put into building a structure like this? Have you seen the size of those struts? Or the length of that ridge purlin? That’s the main roof beam up there. Just the thought of chopping down and sizing and manipulating a trunk of that size, can you imagine how tricky it must have been? And it’s all perfectly pegged . . . And the queen post wasn’t even reinforced with metal.’ He showed her the spot where it all seemed to hold together. ‘This is known as a mansard roof, it allows you to gain a lot of height under the roof, and that’s why there are such beautiful dormer windows.’

  ‘Right. I guess you do know something, after all.’

  ‘No. I’m useless where rural construction is concerned. I have never – to use the jargon of my colleagues – had any inclination for heritage work, the patrimonial stuff. I like to invent, not restore. But naturally when I see something like this, because I’m always looking for ways to experiment with new materials and new techniques with the help of calculations from ever more sophisticated software, I feel – how can I put it – out of my depth . . .’

  ‘And the matrimonial stuff?’ she said suddenly, when they were again in the stairway.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You just said you weren’t into patrimonial stuff, but what about the other, I mean, what about marriage?’

  Charles stopped, holding onto the worm-eaten banister.

  ‘No.’ ‘

  And you . . . do you live with her – your – Mathilde’s mother?’

  ‘No.’

  Ouch.

  It was nothing. A nasty splinter that had it in for fibs.

  Had he fibbed?

  Yes.

  But was he living with Laurence?

  ‘Look . . . they’ve already brought all their stuff.’

  A mountain of cushions and sleeping bags had been piled in the middle of the room. There was also a guitar, some packets of sweets, a bottle of Coke, a tarot deck and a few six-packs of beer.

  ‘Well, this looks promising,’ she sighed. ‘So, this is the tack room. The only comfortable room in our so-called “Vesperies” . . . The only place with a beautiful hardwood floor and well-kept woodwork. The only place that had a stove worthy of the name. And why do you think that is?’

  ‘For the steward?’

  ‘For the leather, old boy! To protect it from the humidity. So that the saddles and bridles of their lordships would be perfectly kept at a perfectly regulated temperature! Everyone else was freezing their arse off but the riding crops were warm and toasty. Isn’t that great? I’ve always thought that it was this room that decided the fate of the dovecote.’

  ‘What dovecote?’

  ‘The one the local people tore down stone by stone to make up for the fact they’d missed out on the château . . . This is more your history than mine, but dovecotes were despised symbols of the Ancien Régime . . . The more the lord wanted to show off, the bigger the dovecote, and the bigger the dovecote, the more pigeons there were to eat up all the peasants’ seed. One pigeon can gobble up almost fifty kilos of grain a year – not to mention all the new shoots in the kitchen garden that they were so crazy about . . .’

  ‘You’re as knowledgeable about things as Yacine . . .’

  ‘Oh! Well, he’s the one who taught me all that.’

  She laughed.

  That smell . . . Mathilde when she was a little girl . . . Why had she stopped her horse riding, in the end? She’d loved it so much.

  Yes, why? And why didn’t he know? What had he let slip by, yet again? He must have been in the throes of some meeting that day . . . one morning she had come to him and said, There’s no point taking me to the pony club any more, and he hadn’t even tried to find out why she was giving it up. How could he . . .

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘My blinkers . . .’ he murmured.

  He turned his back to her and let his gaze wander over the hooks and saddle-holders, the broken bridles, the bench that also served as a chest, the little marble corner sink, the jar filled with – was it tar? the tub full of extra-strength Fly-Be-Gone, the mousetraps, the mouse droppings, the boot-pulls under the window, an incredibly well-kept harness – must belong to the donkey – the horseshoes in a row along the shelf, the brushes and hoofpicks and children’s riding caps, the ponies’ blankets, the stove that had lost its pipe but gained a six-pack of Kronenbourg, and that odd thing hanging from a hook that was very intriguing . . .

  ‘What’s that thing?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s for the martingales.’

  Right.

  He could look it up . . .

  ‘And over there?’ asked Charles, his face up against the windowpane.

  ‘The kennels . . . Or what’s left of them.’

  ‘They were huge.’

  ‘Yes. And what’s left makes you think the dogs were treated every bit as well as the horses. I don’t know if you can see them from here but there are two sculpted medallions with the profiles of the dogs above each door. No, you can’t see them any more. I’ll have to clear away all that growth. We’ll wait just long enough for the blackberries . . . Look, even the railings are lovely. When the children were small and I wanted some peace and quiet I’d bring them here. For them it was like a playpen and it allowed me to get a few things done without having to worry about the river . . . One day one of – I think it was Alice’s – teachers called me in and said, “I’m sorry, it’s very awkward to have to ask you this, but your little girl has been telling everyone in the class that you lock her up in a kennel with her brothers, is it true?”’

  ‘And what happened?’ asked Charles, delighted.

  ‘So I asked her if Alice had told her about the whips as well. In short, after that, my reputation . . .’

  ‘How wonderful.’

  ‘Whipping children?’

  ‘No . . . all these stories you have to tell.’

  ‘Hmm. And what about you? You haven’t said a thing.’

  ‘No. I – I like to listen.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m a chatterbox. But it’s so rare to actually have a civilized human being come this far . . .’

  She opened the other window, and informed the sudden draught of air, ‘So so rare . . .’

  They walked back the way they’d come. ‘I’m dying of hunger, what about you?’

  Charles shrugged his shoulders.

  It wasn’t an answer but he didn’t know what to say.

  He no longer knew how to keep to the blueprint. No longer knew how to read the scale. Didn’t know if he should stay or go. Continue listening or flee. Wait and hear the real story, or drop the car keys into the agency’s letterbox as indicated on the contract.

  He wasn’t a calculating sort, but this was his life, to wait and see what happened, and . . .

  ‘Me too,’ he asserted, to drive away everything Cartesian, logistician, initials in the margin, I the undersigned, everything that was firmly rooted in a life filled with provisos, clauses, and guarantees. Me too.

  After all, he’d come all this way to look for Anouk, and he sensed she was not all that far away.

  She had even touched that nape, just there.

  Just there.

  ‘Well, let’s go and see what the snails have left us.’

  She looked for a basket, which he immediately took from her hands. And as on the evening before, under the same vast wash of pale sky, they left the yard and melted into the tall grasses.

  Shepherd’s purse, daisies, yarrow with slende
r sunshades, greater and lesser celandine, stitchwort, Charles hadn’t a clue about the names of all these flowers, but he wanted to suck up to her, just a bit.

  ‘What’s that . . . with the white stalk, over there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Right in front.’

  ‘A dog’s tail.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Her smile, even mocking, blended well with the landscape.

  The wall of the kitchen garden was in poor repair but the gate, framed by a column on either side, was still impressive. Charles ran his hand over the stone as they went through, felt the rough prickle of lichen.

  The shed door squeaked as Kate opened it to hunt for a knife; Charles followed her in among the vegetables. Every row was straight as a die, impeccably kept, and on either side there were paths arranged in a criss-cross pattern. There was a well in the centre, and flowers everywhere you looked.

  No, he wasn’t sucking up to her, he liked learning.

  ‘And those little trees, the crooked ones along the path, what are they?’

  ‘Crooked?’ she said, indignant, ‘you mean pruned! Those are apple trees . . . they’ve been espaliered, if you please.’

  ‘And that magnificent blue colour on the wall?’

  ‘You mean the Bordeaux mixture? It’s for the vine . . .’

  ‘You make wine here?’

  ‘No. We don’t even eat the grapes. They taste horrible.’

  ‘And that big yellow corolla?’

  ‘Dill.’

  ‘And over there, those feathery things?’

  ‘Asparagus stalks.’

  ‘And those big round things?’

  ‘Garlic.’

  Turning around, ‘Is this the first time you’ve ever seen a kitchen garden, Charles?’

  ‘This close up, yes.’

  ‘Really?’ she exclaimed, as if she were truly sorry, ‘how have you managed to survive this long?’

  ‘I sometimes wonder myself.’

  ‘You’ve never eaten tomatoes or raspberries that have just been picked?’

  ‘Perhaps when I was a kid . . .’

  ‘You’ve never rolled a fresh gooseberry over your lip? You’ve never eaten a wild strawberry still warm from the sun? You’ve never broken a tooth or burned your tongue on a bitter hazelnut?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. And what are those huge red leaves on the left, there?’

  ‘You know . . . you should be asking all these questions of old René, you’d make him so happy. And he can tell you much better than I can. I scarcely have the right to come here. Anyway, look –’ She bent down. ‘Let’s just take some lettuce to go along with your feast and then we’ll put the knife back, and no one’ll be any the wiser.’

  Which is what they did.

  Charles inspected the contents of his basket.

  ‘Is something bothering you?’

  ‘Under a leaf . . . there’s a huge slug . . .’

  She bent over. The nape of her neck . . . She grabbed the beast and dropped it into a bucket near the gate.

  ‘Used to be, René would crush them all, but Yacine went on about it so much that he didn’t dare touch them any more. Now he tosses them into the neighbour’s vegetable garden . . .’

  ‘Why the neighbour’s?’

  ‘Because he killed his rooster.’

  ‘And why does Yacine have a thing about slugs?’

  ‘Only those fat ones . . . Because he read somewhere that they can live between eight and ten years.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘My goodness! You’re as dogged as he is! I don’t know . . . He thinks that if Nature, or God, or whatever, created such a small creature on purpose, something so repulsive and yet so sturdy, well then there must be a reason for it, and that smashing a shovel onto them to get rid of them is an insult to all of creation. He has a lot of theories like that, actually . . . He watches René at work, and talks to him for hours, and tells him about the origins of the world from the first potato until the present day.

  ‘So he’s happy, he’s got an audience, and the old man is over the moon – he confessed to me one day that he’ll finally have his diploma before he dies, and the giant slugs are delighted. A night on the town . . . At any rate, everyone is happy. Follow me, I’ll take you back the other way, for the view, and then we’ll check and see what mischief they’ve been up to . . . It’s always worrying when you don’t hear anything.’

  They walked along what was left of the wall, and took a dirt path which led them to the top of a hill.

  Undulating meadows enclosed by hedges as far as the eye could see, haystacks, woods, an immense sky and, down below, a bunch of kids, most of them in their swimsuits, most of them straddling hairy beasts, laughing, shouting, screaming, and running along the banks of a dark stream that wound its way until it disappeared behind yet another copse . . .

  ‘Right. Everything’s okay,’ she sighed. ‘We can sit and relax now, too.’

  Charles didn’t move.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Do you ever get used to it?’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To this . . .’

  ‘No. Every day it’s something different.’

  ‘Yesterday,’ he said, thinking out loud, ‘the sky was pink and the clouds were blue, and this evening it’s the other way round, it’s the clouds that are . . . Have you – have you been living here for long?’

  ‘Nine years. Come on, Charles, I’m tired . . . I got up really early, I’m hungry, and I’m feeling a little chilly . . .’

  He took off his jacket.

  It was an old trick. He’d done it thousands of times.

  Yes, it was an old trick, putting one’s jacket on the shoulders of a pretty woman on the way home, but what was new in this case was that the evening before he’d been carrying a chainsaw, and today it was a basket full of slugs.

  And tomorrow?

  ‘You look tired yourself,’ she told him.

  ‘I work a lot.’

  ‘I can imagine. And what are you building at the moment?’

  Nothing.

  He let his arm drop.

  A huge wave of the blues had just washed over him.

  He hadn’t answered her question.

  Kate bowed her head. Mused that she too was barefoot in her boots . . .

  And there were stains on her dress, her nails were chipped, and her hands a mess. She wasn’t twenty-five any more. And she had spent the afternoon selling home-made cakes in the courtyard of a little country school that survived on borrowed time. And she had lied to him. There was a restaurant fifteen kilometres from there. She must have seemed utterly ridiculous, giving him the tour of her pile of stones as if it were a magnificent palace. To someone like him, moreover. A man who must have toured them all, at some point. And she must have bored him senseless with all her stories about horses and hens and boorish kids . . .

  Yes, but . . . what else could she have talked to him about?

  What else was there now in her life?

  To start with, she put her hands back in her pockets.

  The rest would be harder to hide.

  They walked down the hill, shoulder to shoulder, silent and very distant from each other.

  Behind them, the sun went down, and their shadows stretched ahead, endless.

  ‘I –’ she murmured in English, very slowly,

  ‘And I will show you something different from either

  Your shadow at morning striding behind you

  Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

  I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’

  As he had stopped, and was looking at her in a way that made her ill at ease, she felt obliged to explain: ‘T.S. Eliot.’

  But Charles couldn’t give a toss about the poet’s name, it was the rest which . . . that . . . how had she guessed?

  She reigned over a world full of ghosts and children; she had such beautiful hands and could recite transparent verse at nightfall: who was she?


  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘How funny, that’s exactly what I was just wondering myself. Well . . . From a distance, just like that, you might say I’m a big farm girl wearing grubby wellingtons who’s trying to sound interesting by quoting bits of a gloomy poem to a man who’s covered in sticking plasters . . .’

  And her laughter knocked their shadows over.

  ‘Come along, Charles! Let’s go and make some huge sandwiches! We’ve earned them.’

  7

  THEY WERE GREETED by the old dog, whimpering on his mean pallet. Kate knelt down, took his head on her lap and rubbed his ears as she murmured tender words to him. And then – and this is where Charles hallucinated, to use Mathilde’s favourite expression – she spread her arms, grabbed the dog from underneath and lifted him off the floor (biting her tongue as she did so) to take him for a piss in the courtyard.

  He was hallucinating so severely that he did not even dare to follow her.

  How much would a creature like that weigh? Thirty kilos? Forty?

  This girl would never cease to . . . to what? To amaze him. To leave him gobsmacked. Seriously gobsmacked, as his fourteen and a half year old dictionary would say.

  Her smile, the nape of her neck, her ponytail, her little 1970s dress, her hips, her ballet flats and wellies, her merry band of outdoorsy kids, her plans to clear away all the foliage, her gift for repartee, her tears when you least expected them, and now the way she had winched that monster hound into her arms in less than four and a half seconds, it was just . . .

  It was just too much for him.

  She came back, arms empty.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, dusting off her thighs, ‘you look as if you’d just seen the Virgin Mary in a pair of Bermuda shorts. That’s what the local kids say. I love that expression . . . “Hey, Mickaël! You just seen the Virgin in shorts or what?” Want a beer?’